For the first time in human history, a majority of the world’s population lives in urban areas. By the year 2050 more than 2/3 will live in metropolitan regions across the globe. At the same moment metropolitan regions confront unprecedented economic, social, and political challenges, the meanings of everyday life are put into question because of the changing structure and increasing interdependence of urban economies. North American cities register the largest number of foreign-born persons in their history, while cities in Europe confront issues of social integration with emergent minority populations in the suburbs and inner city neighborhoods. The rapidly growing urban regions in China and India confront the continuing pressures of rural to urban migration that will produce the largest urban populations in human history. While the focus on the global city often emphasizes similarities in the development of metropolitan regions and neo-liberal regimes, we are interested in better understanding how individuals and groups respond to and create new structures of everyday life within the ever changing urban environment.